Team cohesion, team intelligence, collaboration, cooperation skills
I have hardly come across any organization where the above concepts are used, tested, measured, but this is the capability that is most likely to be turned into profit, that the customer actually pays for and that is most worth developing.
That is why the lack of team cohesion has many drawbacks in our everyday lives, so it is advisable to detect the problems that arise and invest in creating these skills, in measuring team intelligence.
Symptoms of a lack of cooperation:
betrayal
deflecting responsibility
one person dominates the team with his/her professional opinion and is not flexible to the emergence and ideas of others
lack of autonomy
Are others overly dependent on one person and not daring to move forward and make decisions independently?
"I can do it" syndrome. In a team, it is valuable to have different skills, but it is not a defined thing. Everyone has learnt different things, had different experiences in their work, come to different conclusions, have different ways of thinking. What we bring to the team as individuals is our approach and solution to concrete and new problems, not our past.
there is no tendency to come up with different proposals for solutions, it is easy to accept the tasks assigned
manager syndrome - I am the boss, I am right, I decide. Excessive authority in the system
senior-junior syndrome, competition
cliquishness, age, place of residence, job title, departmental animosity
knowledge cannot be transferred, shared
the same actors always perform the same type of tasks
"new boy" syndrome - not receptive to newcomers, supportive, not open to new ways of thinking
communication is cumbersome, tense, between individuals and not documented, information is often lost or delayed in the team
team members lack product knowledge
do not understand or take ownership of common goals
etc
The customer is always satisfied with the quality, functionality of the product delivered, flexibility and speed of the supplier. They are not at all interested in who was on holiday, whose job it was, who caused the delay. When you call a supplier, you are also interested in why what you bought from them is not working properly, and that they fix the problem immediately, not in internal strife.
Getting the team to perform predictably, with consistent communication and as well as possible is the responsibility and challenge of the supplier organisation.
Where team members do not take responsibility for the project and are not motivated to share their observations and ideas with others on a daily basis, and do not look at the wider project and organizational needs, a constant team dynamic can develop, but skills cannot develop at individual or team level. Spending on empty tasks, constant fire-fighting, 'wastage' on chaos management, and staff burn out or wither away, stagnate. In such cases, unfortunately, the constant promotion of management visions and growth plans does not help.
It is a misunderstanding when the management focuses only on group identity and a sense of community and does not emphasize team intelligence and the ability to work together. In most communities, team-building events and celebrations are held regularly, and material benefits such as dinners, sailing trips, gift mugs are given out to build loyalty and a sense of group identity.
While these are indeed valuable and even retention gestures, it can be misleading to expect business results from them, as the customer is not interested in how much was spent during the year, how many bowling balls were hit in the end-of-year competition or who can down a pint of beer the fastest, but still values performance, flexibility and open communication.
Another popular catchword is "family atmosphere". I know some amazingly weird, to me, twisted and cute, inspiring families, but I wouldn't move in with any of them except my own. If a company is family oriented, it's insider oriented, so usually authority is not divided on a knowledge and skill basis. Processes are not clear and transparent, development is not value and performance driven, but rather industrial power relations prevail , gossip, organisational bad habits, secrets...and the intertwining of personal life with work. Employees go to work to earn money, and keep their souls and family ties for their private lives and develop them there. It is natural when an SME is founded by relatives and friends, most stories start that way. It's great if you can work flexibly, have a good atmosphere at work and look out for each other, have helpful colleagues, but don't put the family stamp on yourself officially because it's not professional.
Team intelligence, as much as at an individual level, means problem-solving ability. There is a certain perceived and measurable talent for this in a close-knit group, but of course, like all skills, it can be developed. Most of all, it depends on how well they can appreciate and use each other's talents and ideas, how effectively and clearly they can communicate, and how well they see and feel ownership of a common purpose. Their ability to pass and catch the ball in time, to share information, to be flexible to each other's solutions and opportunities.
Do you organize workshops, joint professional training, retrospectives where cooperation is a value? Do you have a regular practice of review, demo, storytelling, which can increase common product knowledge and understanding of common goals? How often and for how small units do you set targets? Is it a daily practice for you to review how to optimize the allocation of tasks to achieve objectives? How stable are teams, how many tasks are there where two or more people work together, think together ?
Do you reward team performance? How does this show that it is of greater value and superiority than individual indicators? How often do team members give each other feedback, how much do you rotate testing and checking each other's work?
Do you have any suggestions on how else to improve team intelligence beyond the above?
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